Report: Cloud9 in talks with leaf, Infinite and shinobi

Last week Dust2.us announced that new players might be joining Cloud9. On May 12th, 2020 they reported that Nathan “leaf” Orf and Gage “Infinite” Green are set to sign to VALORANT’s team. Early in May leaf was officially signed with Chaos for a trial but it’s coming to a close. Cloud9 had an interest in Infinite back in 2018 to replace Maikil “Golden” Selim, but due to "community backlash over his previous behavior with past teams" it never happened. On May 14th, 2020 it was reported that Josh “shinobi” Abastado might be added to the roster as well after making a statement that he’s quitting CS:GO pro scene to give it a try in VALORANT. In April this year, he played in CS:GO team Bad News Bears with Tyson “TenZ” Ngo, who is officially signed with Cloud9’s VALORANT team.

Leaf is a 16-years old talent who played his first tournament in two years ago at Gfinity Spring Series 2018 North America. His latest tournament was at ESEA MDL Season 34 North America for team Chaos while being on a trial, where in game against team Mythic, he had the best HLTV rating in the match - 1.82 - and had most kills and dealt most damage! Infinite was also playing for team Chaos, but at the beginning of this year, he was released and has been teamless after team Orgless disbanded on April 28th. While playing for team Orgless at this year's Flashpoint Season 1 his team secured 5th-6th place and last year at WESG 2019 North America he and team Chaos finished first.Today he made an official statement that he quits CS:GO and will focus on VALORANT career.

Shinobi is a big name who was the in-game leader of compLexity Gaming and Rogue, he also was a coach for Team Dignitas back in 2018 and was announced two months ago as a head coach for Rise eSports Club. TenZ was the first player who reached VALORANT rank in the world and already played for Cloud9 in CS:GO, but at the end of 2019 he became a streaming partner with the team. Last year he also played as a stand-in for South African team ATK and his overall average HLTV rating was 1.29.

If rumors are correct, Cloud9’s roster will look like this so far:

Tyson “TenZ” Ngo Gage “Infinite” Green Nathan “leaf” Orf Josh “shinobi” Abastado

Boosting three players from their rumored line-up, with a total prize pool of $2,500, Cloud9 won all their games including team Highgrounds in the Grand Final of the Elite Esports North American Rivalry Bowl.

Cloud9’s lineup for Elite Esports North American Rivalry Bowl included:

Tyson “TenZ” Ngo Gage “Infinite” Green Josh “shinobi” Abastado Mitch “mitch” Semago Skyler “Relyks” Weaver

Until now only TenZ is officially signed with Cloud9 and we are still waiting for official news from Cloud9 themselves. None of the above line-up’s mean that these players will be joining the official Cloud9’s VALORANT team.